Let’s get the obvious irony out of the way. I like to think of myself as something of a museum buff, and London really panders to this curiosity with a spectrum of exhibitions that span from obvious to obscure.
Yet the one–plenty famous–cultural space that many immigrants, including me, struggle to walk up to is the British Museum. Or as some historians would call it, the grand British repository of stolen artefacts that were forcibly taken from people of colour during the colonial rule.
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Now that you have the context in place, imagine the absolute shock that swept over when the British Museum announced that the theme for its first ever fundraising ball, an across-the-Atlantic parallel to the revered Met Gala, is inspired by ancient India. Call it internalised colonialism, but the idea of this massive, momentous occasion being anchored to desi textiles and crafts felt exhilarating, as if it was validating some long held desire for approval.
Immediately taken in, I did all the research I could. Held on October 18 for 800 exclusive guests who pay £2000 each to enter, the event marks the end of the museum’s Ancient India: Living Traditions exhibition.
It also serves a dual purpose: first, to solidify London’s position as the global centre of culture and second, to raise money for the museum’s many international partnerships, ranging from archeological projects in Ghana and Iraq to Mumbai.
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And then came the fine text: “the theme for 2025 is pink, drawing inspiration from the colours and light of India…” Wait, what?
How did the organisers whittle down centuries of Indian design and culture to a singular colour? Who was in this room and how did they all nod to this bizarrely random choice? I remember looking around in disbelief as I read the announcement, confused that no one else was kicking and throwing their arms in protest.
Well, fortunately, PhD candidate, podcast host and Substacker Maalvika Bhat resonates with the sentiment. “To say ‘inspired by India’ and then arrive at ‘pink gowns’ feels like a quiet tragedy, a flattening of textile history, trade, and storytelling,” she says. “Indian fashion has never just been decorative; it’s been migratory, political, and philosophical, it is a record of movement, resistance, and craft.” I couldn’t agree more, but a part of me really wanted this big Ball to be a reclamation of years of wrongdoing and a tiny step towards accountability.
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So I reasoned with myself to be patient, to wait until the evening arrives and hold a little space to be pleasantly surprised. Also the museum’s British Ball 2025 Committee List stockpiled some South Asian names, from luxury couturier Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Bollywood actor Sonam Kapoor to The Business of Fashion’s founder Imran Amed and a string of Indian billionaires.
Surely, these many fashion biggies in a room will platform indigenous crafts and age-old textile practices, right?!
Turns out, most of the people from that committee didn’t show up to the Pink Ball, or in the off chance that they did, they were not covered by any media which, let’s be real, is implausible.
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And from the creme of London that did attend, here are some standout looks: Janet Jackson wore a rouge Stephane Rolland gown, Adot Gak arrived in Miss Sohee, Adwoa Aboah in Saint Laurent, Lady Kitty Spencer in Dolce & Gabbana and Naomi Campbell took the cake by wearing a Givenchy ode to the Union Jack flag. This longlist is so obviously jarring it feels like a prank.
I can count on one hand how many famous people actually wore Indian designers or textiles. There’s Isha Ambani, billionaire heiress and co-chair of the Ball, in a two-piece, hand embroidered set by Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla, her mother and patron of the arts Nita Ambani in a sari by Swades and actor-creator Uorfi Javed in another AJSK look. Maybe if you screen the internet with a microscope you can find a couple more looks. Everyone else just wore gowns and Western Formals in various tonalities of pink and dubbed that as effort enough towards an India-inspired dress code.
This utter lack of thought is more striking in the UK where Asians are the largest minority. “Even if people didn’t want to wear homegrown designers, they had the opportunity to work with British-Indian names like Harri, Ahluwalia, Ashish or Supriya Lele,” says fashion and culture writer Avani Thakkar, frustrated that the gala was reduced to just another red carpet.
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Meanwhile, culture creator and strategist Pranjal Jain draws attention to the disparity in rigour and care between the British Museum’s India-inspired Ball versus its recently concluded exhibition. “The resources, attention to detail, and respect given to that exhibit far exceeded what this high-budget, highly publicized event invested in its programming. This dissonance raises a question: why does an academic exhibit get thorough research and thoughtful curation, while a gala with presumably more visibility and budget doesn’t,” asks Jain. “It points to a broader pattern where performative nods to culture—without depth, context, or narrative—are considered sufficient for social events, even when the opportunity to do better is obvious.”
The closer you look, the more hollow the attempts at representation feel. In the name of driving in Indian culture, the Pink Ball served attendees a desi culinary fare in hand painted tiffin boxes. Even if the effort was well intentioned, the lack of context positions it better as mockery than celebration. Instead of borrowing rich Indian textiles such as Kanjivaram silks, sheer mulmul cotton woven with chikankari or rolls of ikat as drapes and finery, the gala filled the museum with pink light as decor. Imagine the gall of having Sabyasachi, among the most aspirational craft names of the world, on your committee and not leaning on him for curatorial guidance on traditional design?
The timing further heightens the disappointment. The British Museum’s apparent ode to India came in when anti-immigrant sentiment in the UK continues to rise. On September 13, mere weeks before attendees wore pink to the Ball, 150,000 people took part in a London march organised by far-right activist Tommy Robinson to ‘Unite the Kingdom’ against residents from the embittered “outside”. Beyond the political anxiety brewing on ground, rooms of art and culture have also echoed this failure to credit. Only a few months ago the internet misappropriated the Indian dupatta as a Scandinavian scarf while Prada crafted footwear inspired by regional Kolhapuri slippers without so much as a mention to the artisanal communities.
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“So much of the world already wears India without realising it, in the plaid that began as Madras checks…and the bandanas that were once wrapped around the heads of Indian workers before they became American symbols,” explains Bhat. And this refusal to acknowledge and to appreciate remains the issue.
Sure, the British Museum’s Ball could not undo decades of deep rooted bias and appropriation but by platforming Indian crafts head on, it had a real opportunity to make a statement. To make millions feel seen and their place in this country secured just a little safer.
But sadly, the Pink Ball was far from it, rather it was just another tokenistic jab at diversity where India, once known as the land of snakecharmers and colourful bazaars, was still just that. Only now packaged marginally more politically correct.
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